By Mark Levison
At 9:00 on Friday evening the jury came in after 4 hours of deliberating on the three week trial. The results for my client were less than stellar. Like the majority of cases I’ve been fortunate enough to handle through the years, there was a lot of money involved.
There were large legal fees and press coverage. It’s more or less fancy stuff with a dozen or so onlookers hanging around late on Friday to hear the verdict. When I got home I was tired and my wife was sympathetic when she handed me her list of things to do within the next week concerning her real estate business. She owns a lot of rental property. The neighborhoods and tenants vary.
I remember the first time I appeared in landlord/tenant court for her. A lawyer I knew who handles bulk filings wanted to know, “What’s a lawyer like you doing in a place like this?” He made it clear he didn’t think I knew what I was doing and, of course, he was right. Thanks to my wife, I have learned at least a little. One thing I’ve learned is that what goes on in the landlord/tenant world, from a legal and non-legal standpoint, is every bit as interesting as my higher profile cases.
Recently Cheryl rented a very expensive property to a seemingly nice young woman who had several children. Cheryl asked me to meet the tenant’s parents the day she moved in. I had a queasy feeling about the stability of a grown woman who required her parent’s presence at a move in. In fact, as soon as she moved in she decided she didn’t really want to be there and felt no obligation to pay the rent. What she did do, was to claim water had seeped in through the basement door and damaged her property. Cheryl happened to have a workman in the house at the time, so she asked him to rush downstairs. According to Mike, there was 1/16 inch of water spreading about 18 inches from the door, caused by the fact that delivery men were carrying in a washer and dryer in the middle of a rainstorm. Mike said the water hadn’t touched anything other than the concrete basement floor, and he wiped it up.
The non-rent paying tenant sued Cheryl for $5,000 for water damage to her personal property. When I say “Cheryl,” she sued an LLC that purportedly owned the property, but it didn’t. Suing and serving the wrong defendant meant no notice of the trial, so no court appearance by me.
Nevertheless, a default judgment was entered for the $5,000 (albeit, against the wrong company) and the tenant somehow got a personal judgment against Cheryl as well! So now Cheryl had someone living in a beautiful rental property who hadn’t paid the rent, and was waiving around a $5,000 judgment from a court that her husband had not bothered to appear before.
Needless to say, I rather quickly visited the judge and got the default set aside.
The case was retried the next week. The contested trial resulted in a defendant’s verdict to the shock and dismay of the tenant and her mother, who had proffered what they believed to be conclusive damage testimony. It just so happened the next day we went to court for the eviction matter. The tenant had a counterclaim for $5,000 there as well, based upon different damages. That didn’t go well for her either.
As interesting as these little court appearances may be, they are actually mundane compared to some of Cheryl’s legal and extra-legal encounters with her tenants. You see, Cheryl has unusual relationships with her renters. First of all, she calls them her “clients” (when she’s not calling them names), and I think that’s a nice touch.
Bob, for instance, is a guy who she often talked to for hours on the phone and sued five times over the course of two years. He would eventually show up in court, pay the two or three month’s rent that was due, shake my hand, inquire about Cheryl, and leave.
